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PC Plod
"They were all members of the metropolitan police at the time, hence the police theme of PC Plod" — Callum of The Scrappers, the team that bought PC Plod in 2016 PC Plod was a robot which attempted to enter Series 4 of Robot Wars , entered by a team of police officers from Kent. It failed to qualify for that series after losing its qualifier to The Executioner , and would not attempt to enter any other series. The robot was named after Mr. Plod (also known as PC Plod), the village policeman from the Noddy series of children's books by Enid Blyton. Design PC Plod was a white, wedge-shaped robot with orange, blue and yellow side stripes and a small blue light on top; its colour scheme resembled the 'jam sandwich' livery widely used by British police cars around the time of Series 4's production. It was armed with a small saw blade built into the front wedge for weaponry. PC Plod's armour was strong, but the robot was light at 65kg, and its cutting disc could only reach out of the robot's armour by a few millimetres at maximum. Qualification PC Plod fought The Executioner in the Series 4 qualifiers. "As for the battle well everything worked well including the weapon! In fact it worked so well we bent the main blade like a sine wave on PC Plods tough Armour. I just never realised the forces involved with 4 tons of hydraulic pressure! So anyway home we went very very disappointed to say the least."— The Executioner website describes the battle[1] During the battle, it was rammed, lifted and grabbed by The Executioner and had its saw blade shattered at one point. However, PC Plod's armour was strong enough to withstand the latter's crushing claw, causing it to bend while trying to pierce through the robot itself. "According to the previous owner of PC Plod, the crushing claw of The Executioner happened to latch onto a block of solid aluminium being used as a motor mount, the toughest part of PC Plod." — Callum of The Scrappers Ultimately, PC Plod lost the qualifier, with neither it nor The Executioner being chosen to appear in Series 4. While the latter later fought in Series 5 and 7 as well as the first series of Robot Wars Extreme , PC Plod ultimately did not appear in or attempt to apply for any other series of Robot Wars after this. Outside Robot Wars On 11th October 2016, PC Plod was sold on eBay to its new team The Scrappers for £45, with the hopes of making it fight-worthy again. "That's the eventual plan, get it back into an arena. Although it'll probably take a year or two, not only because it'll need a lot of work to catch up with 16 years of advancements, but also because we have so little time to work on it right now" — The Scrappers on Facebook[2] After discovering how little purchase PC Plod's cutting disc can make with other robots, the team have considered a variety of new weapons for the robot, and also intend to lower the profile of its wedge, as defence against spinners. External Links The Scappers Facebook Page References #The Executioner Website (Archived) #The Scrappers Facebook Page Category:Heavyweight Robots Category:Robots with names based on film and television Category:Robots that have never won a battle Category:Robots with Circular Saws Category:Robots from Kent Category:Robot Wars Series 4 Non-Qualifiers Category:British Robots